Stranger! I should say not, by the kiss he gave that girl or woman, with me looking on, and saying aloud:
“That’s Anna, sure!”
Yes, it was Anna come abroad with Madame Verwest and her child, and her former maid, Celine, whom she had found at Chateau d’Or, where they had stopped for a few days. And an hour after I was introduced to Mrs. Haverleigh, and sat opposite her at the breakfast we had in her parlor, and studied her closely, and decided that Hal had not overrated her charms.
She was beautiful, with that soft, refined, unconscious beauty that one rarely sees in a really handsome face. There was nothing of the doll about her. She was a thorough woman, graceful, pure, and lovely, with a look in her blue eyes which told of Chateau d’Or and the dreamy day and night watches there. But those were over now. Chateau d’Or was rented for a series of years, at a price merely nominal, and so that was off her hands, and the greatest care she had was the care of her immense fortune. Of course Hal had offered to relieve her of this care, and she had accepted his offer, and given him herself as a retaining fee.
We kept with her after that, or Hal did, and I kept at a distance, and talked with Madame Verwest, and romped with Arthur until we reached Venice, and there, one moonlight night, Hal and Anna were married, and we made the tour of the Grand Canal for a wedding trip, and the canopy over the bride was of pure white satin, and in the soft, silvery moonlight we sang the “Star-Spangled Banner,” our two boatmen joining in the chorus with their sweet Italian voices.
That was long ago, and Hal Morton has a boy of his own now, and a blue-eyed baby daughter, too, and he lives in one of the finest places on the Connecticut river, and goes to Europe every year, and Madame Verwest lives with him; and Fred has been through college, and is on the Continent now; and Mary is married to a Methodist minister, and Mrs. Strong is dead; and Eugenie—well, when the Commune swept over Paris, Eugenie herself went into the street and cared for the wounded and dying, and hurled a stone at a Frenchman who was attacking an American, and kept him at bay, and got the young man into her own house, and bandaged up his head, and called him “Sharles,” and asked him if he remembered her.
Fred did remember her then, and staid with her till the fierce storm was over and he was free to leave beleaguered and desecrated Paris and go on his way to Scotland, where he found Hal Morton and Anna in their beautiful home among the Highlands, not very far from Loch Katrine, and so I finish this story of Chateau d’Or.
THE END.
NORAH.
